Good that our findings eventually line-up Guy. Where would science be without proper replication?

I'll try to replicate your test of whether ESP metering works differently with native than with foreign lenses when I find the time and see what I come up with. There might well be a difference in how it works, as your findings suggest, but I am not sure.

Maybe the difference was how the lenses worked, I did see more flare with the Nikon lens compared to the Panasonic zoom and that may have distorted the readings.

A better controlled light source may help improve the result, but I'm happy now without doing any more with that.

I tend to leave the camera at matrix all the time anyway and just use exposure compensation to get the red/blue blinkies where I want them. I like life to be simple.

Well, the live-view blinkies have certainly made life easier for me. I hardly meter at all in the conventional sense any more but just go by the blinkies. Wonderful invention that saves a lot of time compared to chimping for ex-post blinkies as I used to. When I do meter, however, I use spot rather than center-weighted or ESP. So I am not all that interested in the ins and outs of ESP on my own behalf. I just figured we should sort out what is what now that we have started.